Midweek Sortie 14: The Quiet Cold War Mohawk—Border Surveillance and Army Aviation Reconnaissance
Sweeping low along the Iron Curtain, the OV-1 Mohawk prowled NATO’s frontlines— delivering rapid-fire reconnaissance to commanders standing guard at the edge of history.
“The OV-1 was such a unique aircraft; it had a variety of sensors and cameras. For an airplane designed in the late 1950’s, it truly was packed with interesting equipment.”
—Retired Captain Gary Clark
The briefing room smells like JP-4 and coffee that’s been burning since before sunrise. A map of the inner German border is pinned to corkboard, its red grease-pencil lines tracing valleys, gaps, and the roads you’re about to “read” from a few hundred feet up.
Outside, the OV-1 Mohawk waits—tripletail, blunt-nosed, built like a tool rather than a trophy. In the cockpit you sit shoulder-to-shoulder, pilot and sensor operator, and the airplane’s real “weapons” aren’t under the wings today, they’re in the mission kit: cameras, infrared, radar.
